


a heavy, horrid certainty

by partofitall



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/F, mostly sansaery flashbacks, sansa learns about what happened at the sept of baelor, set after jon leaves for dragonstone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23233234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/partofitall/pseuds/partofitall
Summary: The people she’d cared most about had a sick tendency of dying on her. She supposes that it was stupid of her to ever believe that Margaery Tyrell—the girl with the sharp mind and beautiful smile and the unfailing kindness that had changed everything—might be an exception.
Relationships: Sansa Stark/Margaery Tyrell
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	a heavy, horrid certainty

**Author's Note:**

> clearing out my documents folder, have some flashback-heavy sansaery i wrote a year ago

The news reaches her the day after Jon leaves for Dragonstone. The Sept of Baelor was lost in a green blaze of wildfire, taking with it the lives of all that had been gathered inside. The High Sparrow, his order, hundreds of smallfolk—gone. Queen Margaery, gone.  
She wishes she felt something. She wishes she were still capable of grief, of terror, of shock. Instead, she only feels numb.  
Her father. Her mother. Robb. Rickon. Bran too, in a way, and although Brienne tells her that Arya is alive, Sansa can’t allow herself to trust the possibility. The people she’d cared most about had a sick tendency of dying on her. She supposes that it was stupid of her to ever believe that Margaery Tyrell—the girl with the sharp mind and beautiful smile and the unfailing kindness that had changed everything—might be an exception.  
  
_(Margaery made her laugh. It wasn’t a familiar feeling, laughter, after so long being tormented by Joffery, but it sprung from her lips much easier when she was with Margaery, walking arm-in-arm through the gardens or watching the ships leave the port, inventing stories about the places they’re going.)_  
  
Sansa thanks the maester for bringing the message to her attention, and then retreats to her chambers. Before she can lie down, her eyes snag on her own reflection, in the mirror above her—her mother’s—dressing table. Her red hair is loose, save for a section on either side of her face, pinned neatly behind her head. It’s how Cersei had worn her hair, when Sansa had been her captive. But as she gazes back at her reflection, she’s not thinking of Cersei Lannister. She’s thinking of Margaery’s curls, and of the way they spilled over pale shoulders, those same two sections pulled back.  
  
_(“You’ve never used a curling iron?”  
“In the North, our hairstyles are more practical. Less—“ she remembered the intricate crown of curls that had rested on Margaery’s head before she had carefully unraveled them and woven the soft brown hair into the braided style that Sansa’s mother had always given her and Arya (her mother, who was marching south with Robb and an army; Arya, who she hadn’t seen in nearly two years, who might well be dead), “romantic.”  
“Romantic?” Margaery laughed.  
Sansa’s cheeks reddened. Romantic. It was a silly notion, the kind of thinking she had entertained when she still believed in kind princes on white horses, the idiocy that had made her so eager to leave the North for the pit of vipers called King’s Landing.  
“It was stupid of me to choose that word,” she said quickly. “As a child, I was too fond of fairytales.”  
“And now?”  
“Now I know that they aren’t true.”  
Margaery smiled softly. “You had to learn that lesson the hard way.”  
“I shouldn’t have. I should’ve known it long before coming here. I’m a slow learner, I’m afraid.”  
“But you learn.” Margaery brushed a fresh curl out of Sansa’s face, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “You’re smarter than they give you credit for. And for what it’s worth,” she continued, voice soft and confident and alluring, drawing Sansa ever deeper, “you look as beautiful as any princess from the storybooks, Lady Sansa.”)_  
  
She doesn’t cry. It’s not something that she does anymore—not after all of the horrible things she’s seen, all of the horrible things that have been done to her. The echoes of Ramsey still sear freshly in her mind. She remembers his rough hands and his cruel laugh, and sometimes she can feel the now-invisible bruises that he littered onto her skin. The fear and disgust she’d once felt at the prospect of her first marriage felt ridiculous, looking back. If only Tyrion Lannister had been the worst match to be forced upon her. Margaery—lovely, comforting, dead Margaery—had told her as much, when she’d laid out her childish terror before her.  
  
_(“You were married before. To Renly Baratheon. On your wedding night, you must’ve…” Sansa trailed off, embarrassed. The fears she held regarding her impending marriage to Tyrion Lannister grew by the day, and chief among these fears was the knowledge of what would happen when she returned to her bedchamber after the ceremony.  
“No, sweet girl. We tried, of course. But we didn’t.” Margaery paused, and, perceptive as always, seemed to realize that although Sansa wouldn’t ask why—proper ladies didn’t ask such questions—she wanted to. “Renly Baratheon was rather partial to sharing his bed with men.”  
Sansa knew, of course, that there existed men who desired other men. She’d heard the whispered rumors, the teachings of the Seven. But she’d never heard such matters spoken of so casually. Margaery said it offhandedly, like one would state the color of a gown or name a dish at supper—like it was a fact of life, not a shameful secret or the subject of a scandal. Sansa’s thoughts flitted back to a previous conversation with Margaery, shortly after her engagement to Tyrion Lannister had been decided. Some girls like pretty girls, she’d said.  
“That didn’t bother you?”  
She shrugged. “Our marriage was political, and he was a good man. I didn’t need him to want me, even when it was necessary that we eventually lie together to produce an heir.”  
Sansa nodded. She supposed that Margaery was right. It would be enough—ideal, really, the best the daughter of a man executed for treason could hope for—to be married to a good man. To someone kinder than Joffery, at the very least. Love wasn’t nearly as important as the knowledge that she wouldn’t be dragged out of her rooms and stripped in front of the entire court while her husband pointed a loaded crossbow at her chest. Romance didn’t hold a candle to having the freedom to breathe again. Despite appearances, Tyrion seemed to be more decent than the rest of his family. Perhaps Tywin would allow them to eventually move to Casterly Rock, far away from Joffery’s cruelty. Perhaps she could be safe there.  
Margaery took her hand. “Darling girl,” she said softly, shaking her head slightly. “You’ve survived our king. The Imp will be far less of a trial.”  
Sansa knew that she was right. But as Margaery’s hand laid on top of her own and she felt a strange warmth spreading from where their fingers joined, thoughts of Tyrion Lannister and of her approaching marriage were overpowered by a simple, earthshattering line: Some girls like pretty girls.)_  
  
It’s not something that Sansa dwells on often, the strange feeling of longing that sometimes springs in her chest when she looks upon an exceptionally beautiful woman. She does know, however, that it’s the feeling she is expected to feel—supposed to feel—at the prospect of marrying a high lord. Thankfully, after Ramsay, no one is eager to force her into another marriage. And even if they were, she thinks, I won’t let them. I’m stronger, now. I won’t be treated like an object to be passed around and sold. Still, however she may try to ignore it, the feeling still sometimes resurfaces from beneath the surface of a heart that so often feels iced over—frozen solid and cold, composed of sharp fractals easily fashioned into weapons—and when it does, she thinks of Margaery. She thinks of a single, beautiful kiss.  
  
_(“Margaery?”  
“Yes?”  
“Forgive me, My Lady, I shouldn’t—”  
“Come on now, Sansa, you know that you needn’t censor your thoughts around me, and you needn’t call me ‘My Lady.’ We’re friends, you and I. Good friends, I’d like to think.”  
“I’d like to think that as well.” She refolded her hands nervously on her lap. “What you told me the other day—about some girls liking pretty girls.” She had already been attentive to Sansa’s every word, but at this line of conversation her focus appeared to strengthen still more. “How did you mean it?”  
“Have you ever been kissed by anyone, Sansa?” Margaery asked thoughtfully after a long pause.  
Yes. Sansa froze at the memory. He’d given her a necklace, and she’d been so, so stupid. “Only by Joffery.”  
Margaery’s features—her wide eyes, her delicate lips, her neat brows and long lashes—re-arranged into an inscrutable expression. “Would you like to be kissed by someone else? I would believe you deserve a better memory of the act than what Joffery left you with.” Sansa realized after it was too late that her eyes had dropped unconsciously to a pair of pink lips. The action didn’t appear to escape Margaery’s notice, and a small smile grew on her face. “Sansa, darling, would you like to be kissed by me?”  
Sansa’s eyes snapped back up, barely able to meet Margaery’s. She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks, likely coloring them with a shade that rivaled her hair. “Is this another one of your jokes, Lady Margaery?”  
Margaery lifted a hand to Sansa’s face, cupping a burning cheek. Her eyes were soft, with a bit of the glint that was so uniquely Margaery that Sansa might’ve had trouble recognizing her face without it. She shook her head. “This isn’t a joke, sweet girl,” she said, and then she gently brought Sansa’s face to her own.)_  
  
It had been the only one—shared before news of the Red Wedding reached King’s Landing. Tyrion had been the one to tell her what had happened to Robb and to her mother, about how Stark blood stained the floor of a grand feasting hall at the Twins. It had been the only one, because of course it had. What was it that Cersei had told her, all those years ago? _Love only your children._ To love anyone else—her eldest brother, her own father and mother, Margaery—was impractical and foolhardy.  
  
_(“They cut off his head,” she choked. “They cut off my brother’s head, and they replaced it with the head of his direwolf. They cut—” another sob wracked her body, and for a moment no words came. “They cut my mother’s throat to the bone.”  
Margaery didn’t say anything, and for this, Sansa was grateful. She fell into her, forehead pressed into the hollow above her collar bone, and cried.  
She felt Margaery’s thin arms wrap around her, and then a steady hand smoothing her hair—from the crown of her head to the base of her neck—over and over again. In Margaery’s embrace, Sansa began to drift to sleep. She hoped that when she woke, she’d be a little girl again. She’d be in Winterfell with her family, picking out which gown to wear to meet King Robert’s delegation from King’s Landing. When she lived those days for real, outside of the hideous nightmare that she had been stuck in for so long, she wouldn’t let Father go south.)_  
  
When Sansa wakes up in chambers that once belonged to her parents, she knows with a heavy, horrid certainty that none of this is a nightmare.


End file.
